MORE STATES RETHINKING PENALTIES FOR PETTY CRIMES

Jail overcrowding and budget cuts are forcing authorities to explore
alternative sentencing in lieu of '3 strikes' policy.

LOS ANGELES -- Facing major budgetary strains and concerns that some felons
involved in petty crime are being unduly punished, more than a dozen states
are rethinking their policies on stiff sentences and "three strikes" laws.

During the 1990s, about 25 states -- including Indiana -- and the federal
government passed laws requiring violent offenders convicted of a third
felony to be incarcerated 25 years to life without parole. The laws, a
response to escalating gang and drug activity, followed a move by nearly
all states to mandate the number of years felons would serve for specific
violent crimes.

The result was a burgeoning prison population and rising costs at a time
when state budgets are shrinking. Now several states, including California,
Connecticut, Iowa, North Carolina and Texas, are trying to cut their prison
population by loosening their mandatory-minimum laws, shifting more drug
users from jails to treatment or by closing facilities.

"The only direction we saw for years and years was for states to increase
penalties, increase the number of people going to prison and to abolish
early release programs," said Malcolm Young, executive director of the
Sentencing Project, a nonprofit group in Washington advocating prison
alternatives.

"Now politicians are determining that they can take steps to moderate
sentences without fear of a public backlash," said Young, whose
organization recently released a study on the issue. These developments (by
states) are . . . driven in part by budget concerns."

Illinois has shuttered the Joliet Correctional Center and has announced
several other cuts, in hopes of saving more than $100 million.

In California, a bill seeking to soften the nation's toughest three-strikes
law is advancing through the Legislature. The bill would ask voters to
decide whether to restrict the third strike to violent crimes.

The effort is fueled by a recent federal appeals court ruling that
overturned the 25 years to life sentences of two felons who had committed
petty crimes, such as shoplifting videotapes. The court declared that
California's three-strikes law was cruel and unusual punishment and ruled
that the sentences should fit the crime.

A Florida appeals court recently threw out that state's three-strikes law
on a technicality. Gov. Jeb Bush is expected soon to reauthorize a new
version of three strikes that solves the technical question while keeping
the law largely intact. Still, defense lawyers, public defenders, judges
and civil rights groups are increasing pressure on lawmakers to lower the
penalties on three-strike offenders.

The movement by the states to toughen penalties for violent criminals has
since 1970 contributed to a six-fold increase in the nationwide prison and
jail population, which now stands at 1.9 million, according to experts.
Since 1980, incarceration costs have jumped to $40 billion, an eight-fold rise.

But the recession and the loss of billions in tax revenue have forced many
states to make significant cutbacks to prison spending. For example, the
Illinois Department of Corrections plans to keep the soon-to-be-completed
Thomson Correctional Facility closed in fiscal 2003 to save $49 million.
Arkansas, Colorado and Kansas are considering either closing prisons or
delaying construction of new ones.

Within the past year, Mississippi has adopted an early release law for
nonviolent offenders. Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Idaho, North
Carolina and Texas passed laws requiring the diversion of nonviolent drug
users from prison to treatment. And Virginia adopted an early release
program for elderly inmates.

In Louisiana, officials approved a measure last year loosening the state's
mandatory minimum sentencing law in the face of a $900 million projected
deficit.

California offenders receive their first and second strikes for a list of
serious and violent crimes, including armed robbery, rape, burglary and
assault. But the third offense, which triggers the 25 years to life
sentence, can include any felony, such as petty theft.

The U.S. Supreme Court waded into the debate recently by agreeing to decide
whether California's "three strikes" law violates the Constitution.